


Electricity

by orphan_account



Series: Like a Live Wire [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Nogitsune
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and Stiles aren't coping well in the aftermath of the Nogitsune and Allison's death. They have a bit of a heart-to-heart and maybe even find some comfort in each other while they wait out a storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Electricity

**Author's Note:**

> Well, writing this beat the hell out of doing study guides and making a Quizlet. Reading it probably will too.

Scott can feel the storm coming in his bones. It’s the way the wind tosses the leaves of the trees on the Preserve, their undersides flashing silver as it blows. The way the air feels heavy and humid, like he’s underwater, and the smell of ozone. He thinks maybe he can hear the crash of thunder in the distance, but when he tries to focus on the sound the only thing he picks up is the steady beat of Stiles’ heart and the rush of air through leaves.

“It feels like rain,” Stiles tells him idly. 

They’re sitting, leaning against one of the Jeep’s tires. Their shoulders are brushing, and Stiles tears up grass, tossing it in the direction of the Nemeton. Scott doesn’t know why they’re there. It isn’t as if staring at the stupid stump is bringing up any fond memories for either of them. He watches as the wind catches the most recent handful of grass Stiles threw, picking it up and sending the blades spiraling skyward. 

“It’s going to storm,” Scott agrees. 

He can’t believe they’re talking about the weather. He’s known Stiles for more than ten years, at this point. They should be talking about how he smells like the sour chemicals in energy drinks, how they’re both sporting impressive lavender half-moons under their eyes. They should talk about Allison, and how her death wasn’t either of their faults. They should get in the Jeep and drive back to the burning wreckage of their lives before the sky breaks open over their heads and they end up soaked. There’s a lot of things they should do. Instead, they sit in silence. Scott listens to the sound of Stiles’ heart and hopes that he never has to hear it stop. 

“I think I felt a raindrop,” Stiles offers.

“We should probably go,” says Scott, but neither of them move.

They stay there. Scott watches as slow, fat raindrops kick up puffs of dust where they hit the bare earth. Stiles flinches violently when one catches him in the eye. When Scott finally moves, it’s because the dust is turning to mud and his shirt is moving beyond being dappled darker where drops of water hit it and into the territory that will smell if he leaves it in a ball in the corner of his room. 

“Let’s go,” he decides, and hauls Stiles to his feet. 

They get in the Jeep. Stiles starts it and switches on the windshield wipers, but then he just stops and watches the wiper blades screech back and forth across the windshield. 

“You need new blades, dude,” Scott tries, because he has to say something and the rhythmic scrap of rubber over glass is overwhelming his senses.

Stiles doesn’t react, and Scott hates everything. He hates the Nogitsune. Hates it with every fiber of his being. He hates himself for not recognizing it sooner. Hates his father for interfering, never mind that he’d only been doing his job. He hates Allison for dying, for just up and leaving the rest of them to deal with the fallout. He hates Stiles for not being stronger than this. He hates the dead look in his friend’s eyes, and the cloying smell of guilt. Mostly though, mostly he hates himself. 

“Stiles,” he says on an exhale. “Come on, man.”

Scott misses him. He misses him, and he’s starting to realize that the old saying about not knowing what he had until it was gone was true. Stiles had always been the one that talked. He had talked them into trouble and then out of it. He had filled up the silence between them with sarcasm and quick grins. Scott had hung on every word, every gesture, every flash of white teeth and warm eyes. Now though, now it’s Scott’s job to smile winningly in the face of authority, lie blatantly, and joke about it later. Now Scott’s the one that’s supposed to have blinding insights into the supernatural world they’re both so new at. Scott’s supposed to know important things now. He’s supposed to say them with confidence, or maybe a put-upon sigh if it’s three in the morning and Derek has gone missing yet again. Scott is failing hard at filling up the void the Nogitsune left. 

“I’m fine,” Stiles says, and he sounds exhausted. 

“Everything is going to be fine,” Scott tells him, almost at the same time.

Stiles meets his eyes for the first time in maybe a week. He nods jerkily, says, “I know.”

Scott nods back. Then he adds another mistake to the already long list he has going and kisses Stiles. Stiles kisses him back. It’s nice. A little weird, but nice. They jerk apart when lightening hits so close that Scott’s toes tingle. A second later there’s a huge clap of thunder, and it begins to rain in earnest. 

“Sorry,” Scott mutters.

Stiles shakes his head. “No, dude, no. It’s fine.”

“I just—” Scott sighs, frustrated. “I don’t know how to talk to you.”

“You sound like my dad now,” Stiles informs him with a touch of his old humor. “Soon you’ll be telling me that you aren’t mad, you’re just disappointed.”

“I’m not,” Scott says quickly as the rain begins to drum somehow harder against the car. “I’m not mad, and I’m not disappointed. Nothing that happened was your fault.”

Stiles snorts a little. “If I’d just been strong enough to fight—” he begins, and sighs. “If I’d been stronger, and faster, and smarter—”

“You don’t think I tell myself that every day?” Scott demands. “If I’d been a better werewolf I could have saved Allison—”

“So we’re back to you and Allison now, are we?” Stiles asks bitterly. 

Scott can smell that he feels guilty for saying it the instant the words leave his mouth, but reacts poorly anyway. “She’s dead, Stiles. Dead as in never coming back. I think I’m allowed to be sad.”

Stiles’ eyes are bright with anger for a moment, but then he slumps. “I know,” he says, and he looks so defeated that Scott’s heart hurts.

“You know what else I tell myself?” Scott asks suddenly. “I tell myself that if I had been a better friend, if I had noticed something was wrong, if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in Allison and Kira, I tell myself that maybe I could have saved you too.”

Stiles looks up at that. “I didn’t need to be saved. I’m here and I’m alive. No rescue necessary.”

“You’re not happy though,” Scott argues. “You’re exhausted and you’re miserable. I could have saved you from that. I miss the old you,” he adds.

“I’m the same person I always was,” Stiles tells him.

“You’re really not,” Scott says.

“And you think you made it through all this as the same person you were that night we walked into the woods looking for Laura Hale?” Stiles wants to know. “Newsflash, you aren’t.”

“That’s different—” Scott tries, but Stiles cuts him off with an air of finality. 

“It’s really not.”

They stare at each other. Stiles had braced himself sometime during their argument, one hand on the steering wheel and the other clutching his headrest. His eyes flick momentarily toward a leaf caught in his wiper blades and then back to Scott, who has his back flat to the passenger-side door. The window crank is digging uncomfortably into his back. Stiles closes the distance between them and this time it’s him that’s kissing Scott. “Let’s not talk about it,” he murmurs.

“That’s not healthy,” Scott protests weakly.

“Neither’s shouting at each other in the middle of the woods,” Stiles says, maneuvering himself over the center console. 

Scott can’t argue with that, so they keep kissing. Even without the lightening in the background he thinks it would have been pretty electrifying.


End file.
